Scottish football produces fine crop of last-minute festive shoppers

For a football fan, there is only one time of year when stocking fillers are
not synonymous with shin guards. Mind you, we’re never short of books which
could double up for the job, given their heft, despite persistent reports of
the death of print.

Hoops legends: Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan features in Henrik, Hairdryers and the Hand of GodPhoto: PA

But whether you prefer to turn pages by hand or have it done for you by touch-screen, the Scottish game has again produced a fine crop for last-minute festive shoppers. Pride of place in this season’s output is taken by one that we mentioned some weeks ago – Henrik, Hairdryers and the Hand of God, by Brian Marjoribanks (Back Page Press £8.99).

As was explained in this column, the volume had a sad genesis, the stillbirth of a son, Andrew, to Brian and his wife Jennifer. Seeking a way to support Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity that provides understanding and solace for parents who find themselves in that distressing situation, Brian asked colleagues to contribute to a book celebrating sports writing – mainly, but not wholly, devoted to football journalism as it is practised in Scotland.

No fewer than 72 writers rendered essays, all for free – the entire proceeds of the book go to Sands – and the result is a marvellous serendipity that repays repeated browsing. One story, by the Aberdeen-born Bryan Cooney – itself adapted from his Kindle collection Fingerprints of a Football Rascal – features Sir Alf Ramsey, whose attitude to the domain north of the border was famously distilled into the reply he gave, when arriving at Glasgow Airport with his England squad for an international at Hampden Park to be greeted by a reporter who hailed him with “Welcome to Scotland, Sir Alf.”

“You must be ------- joking!” was the Wildean retort of the man who had won the World Cup. Cooney relates his tale of interviewing Ramsey, who after downing a volume of alcohol over an extended lunch, insisted on driving Cooney and his photographer to Ipswich station to catch a train.

The journey involved a hair-raising piece of lunatic overtaking, involving a lumbering lorry, an oncoming car and a very close miss at 80mph. They thought it was all over? It very nearly was.

Other head-on collisions pitch journos against irate managers and players, as when Mark Wilson of the Scottish Daily Mail, sports a giant foam hand – emblazoned with ‘Go DC United’ – bought by a colleague for a Celtic pre-season game in Washington. Unfortunately, Celtic lost 4-0 and an incensed Gordon Strachan materialised just as Wilson was trying on the hand, which he stuffed inside his jacket, only for one fabric finger to jut out.

Speaking of hands, in this case one reputedly belonging to God, John Greechan, describes a mission to ascertain whether Diego Maradona was dying or not, an expedition that involved flying on a twin-prop plane through an electrical storm in Argentina which rivalled Ramsey’s driving for the terror it induced.

And, speaking of planes, Sunday newspaperman, Graeme Croser, discovered that the pilot of a Rangers Uefa Cup charter to Israel was none other than Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of heavy metal earbashers, Iron Maiden, and only just missed being able to boast of being flown by the captain on his own equivalent of a private jet.

Brian Marjoribank’s dad – also called Brian – was not only a journalist and broadcaster, but played (to the surprise of many of his son’s younger colleagues) for both Hibs and Hearts. He was also an actor and appeared in the first series of the much loved BBC Scotland drama of the 1960s, Dr Finlay’s Casebook.

It is hard to upstage Brian Senior’s pedigree but – if you know where to look – you will find this columnist’s name in the 1990s TV remake and in the later Radio 4 series. But that is another story.

As is The Game on New Year’s Day, by Ted Brack (Black & White Publishing, £15.99), which could not be more timely for Hibs fans, because it celebrates their record 7-0 derby win away to Hearts on New Year’s Day 1973. The occasion remains bittersweet for Hibees because, while it was an incomparable triumph over their fiercest rivals, the trend in recent years has been one of Hearts’ dominance, culminating in the 5-1 humiliation inflicted last May in the first all-Edinburgh Scottish Cup final since 1896.

Still, Hearts’ sequence of 11 derbies unbeaten came to an end in the Scottish Cup tie at Easter Road earlier this month and this book – with its contributions from many of the players who took part in the immortal match – will fuel dreams on the green side of Edinburgh that the feat will be repeated when the teams again meet at Tynecastle, just after the 40th anniversary, on Jan 3. Hibs, incidentally are one of the most exhaustively documented Scottish teams, with the club’s history from 1875-1946 already recorded in a trilogy called The Making of Hibernian, by Alan Lugton.

Now the first part of a new trilogy – At Easter Road They Play by John Campbell (Birlinn Press £20) – takes the story from 1945 to 1967. A goal by goal and game by game account, this is one for the Hibee with a taste for meticulous history.

Perhaps the most poignant account published this year was Kevin Twaddle’s Life On The Line, with Scott Burns (Black & White £11.99, foreword by Paul Merson), in which the former St Johnstone, Raith Rovers, Morton, Motherwell and Hearts forward – he played in a 5-1 league thrashing of Hibs – tells how he became addicted to betting at the age of 13 and lost more than £1 million. The emotional cost was also shattering but, suitably for a festive present, it comes with as happy an ending as the circumstances could have permitted.

But this column’s second favourite book of the year is The Hurting – the Glasgow Terror by the Evening Times football writer, Bert Mitchell (Fledgling Press, £9.99), which features a Jihadist attack on an Old Firm game at Rangers' Ibrox. His protagonist, Detective Sergeant Gus Thoroughgood – hero of Mitchell’s first thriller, Parallel Lines, has one quality which commends him above all others.